Placing the Blame as Students Are Buried in Debt

[Middleman]

A lot of parents and their college aged kids are being duped into taking on exorbitant amounts of debt to obtain degrees that don't always pay off. The girl in the article owes $100,000 and is now making $22 an hour, finally. She's got a fancy degree and a boatload of debt. The universities are giving students poor counsel and hooking them up with lending agencies. The whole thing sounds like a scam on their part, taking advantage of gullible kids.

Why don't high schools have courses in budget management as a mandatory class before graduation? These kids are like sheep at slaughter being sent into a predatory world. Not to downplay individual responsibility, but the colleges and lenders bear a large part of the blame here.

Placing the Blame as Students Are Buried in Debt--NY Times

Like many middle-class families, Cortney Munna and her mother began the college selection process with a grim determination. They would do whatever they could to get Cortney into the best possible college, and they maintained a blind faith that the investment would be worth it.

Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she's been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan payments.

This is not a long-term solution, because the interest on the loans continues to pile up. So in an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people like Ms. Munna are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as subprime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up.

Meanwhile, universities like N.Y.U. enrolled students without asking many questions about whether they could afford a $50,000 annual tuition bill. Then the colleges introduced the students to lenders who underwrote big loans without any idea of what the students might earn someday — just like the mortgage lenders who didn't ask borrowers to verify their incomes.

 

[WillowTree]

does this mean we taxpayers have to foot her ill thought bills??

 

[Middleman]

I'm not certain about the workings of the student loan programs. Maybe someone can enlighten us.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The "everyone has to go to college" mindset is ludicrous.

I'm all for education for education's sake but as I said before, most of what you get in college can be got for free.

If all the people with absolutely worthless liberal art degrees that are now managing a fast food joint or retail store would be better off if they spent some time in the library rather than spending tens of thousands on a degree they won't from which they will receive no benefit.

 

[rightwinger]

I've seen it with the kids of neighbors and friends. They go into debt to pay $45,000 a year for a degree that will ultimately pay $30,000 a year. Not all college degrees are created equal, not all kids are college material.

I see 18 yr old kids scoff at going to a local or community college that would cost less than $10,000. Both parents and the kids want to brag about attending a prestige school in another state. Meanwhile they run up debt without ever considering how they will pay it off.

 

[rdean]

I've seen it with the kids of neighbors and friends. They go into debt to pay $45,000 a year for a degree that will ultimately pay $30,000 a year. Not all college degrees are created equal, not all kids are college material.

I see 18 yr old kids scoff at going to a local or community college that would cost less than $10,000. Both parents and the kids want to brag about attending a prestige school in another state. Meanwhile they run up debt without ever considering how they will pay it off.

Absolutely.

I went to a university here in Chicago for "engineering". I had the GI bill and the company I worked for paid 1,200 a year the first year and that amount went up every year until I finished. After it was all said and sifted, they paid about 8,000 total.

Even with all that, I still owed $56,000 which I paid off.

This is no joke, the girl at the Office where they help you get grants, told me, "You know what you're problem is, you are too young, too old, too single, too male, too white, and you too much money." That is no joke. As I left the office, I repeated that over and over again so I would never forget it.

This is why the Obama's didn't pay off their loans until they close to 40.

And talk about drop out. When I started Calculus (remember, this is at the university level), there were 44 people in the class. By time we got to "differential linear equations", there were 6 (and one of the six was an 80 year old man who was continuing his education after retiring).

My advanced physics class had only 4. We were told if 1 drops out, or fails, the class is cancelled. We worked together to make sure everyone passed.

This was for a 5 year degree, but took 8 because I went at night and some semesters, there simply weren't enough students to make a class, so I had to wait a semester and sometimes two. I even took "jazz dancing" one semester to get enough credits to get the GI bill. Billiards and tap dancing were full.

There should be alternatives.

Odd that some people will do anything to get into prestigious school, but only have contempt for education. I can think of both a political party and a recent president that fits the description.

 

[MalibuMan]

I agree with you rightwinger. I think it is the "I got to have the best" mentality even if you can't afford it. Then when you fail at paying the loans off or have trouble it is someone elses fault.

 

[Avatar4321]

I'm sorry, but don't they do some sort of planning before hand? How is it anyones fault but the students and her parent for not explaining to her that money doesn't grow on trees?

This is exactly why i think degrees are a joke honestly. The idea that everyone needs one to succeed is a lie. It's a scam for the schools to get more money.

This nation was built on the backs of people who educated themselves with hard work and very little formal education. Education was gained for education's sake.

We need to stop artificially jacking up the price for this stuff.

 

[boedicca]

The "everyone has to go to college" mindset is ludicrous.

I'm all for education for education's sake but as I said before, most of what you get in college can be got for free.

If all the people with absolutely worthless liberal art degrees that are now managing a fast food joint or retail store would be better off if they spent some time in the library rather than spending tens of thousands on a degree they won't from which they will receive no benefit.

It's an Education Bubble, yet another example of misguided government policies distorting the markets. Education inflation is completely out of whack with the economy - and driven by what is seen as cheap money when waved in front of a naive 18 year old.

IMO, universities commit fraud when financial aid counselors encourage kids to take on massive amounts of debt for degrees that do not have a high enough expected income to service the debt.

 

[Middleman]

I agree also, Rightwinger. There is a lot of 'keeping up with the Jones' in pursuing college educations.

Also, I think that academia has become an expansionist industry, so to speak. They've made degrees fluffed up and dumbed down in the interest of inclusion. Everyone is supposed to get a college education these days, no matter if they are a dyslexic hillbilly who needs special help with reading his textbooks, an underprivileged kid from the ghetto who somehow never picked up standard English, someone with ADHD and bipolar who needs a campus counselor, campus doctor, special tutor, you name it. The colleges provide all these services, paid for by raising tuitions.

Because any idiot can get a bachelors, since the coursework is geared toward the lowest common denominator, now many professions require a Master's or PhD for entry level. All this helps expand the need for academia, no matter how irrelevant and useless some of their degrees might be. Since they need to keep students coming in order to keep their jobs, they then encourage students to take out reckless loans and incur enough debt to last a lifetime, even for a degree that may prove financially useless.